Immersive versus Multilingual FLT at Beginning Levels: A Comparison of French and Arabic

Contemporary theories of language pedagogy have advocated almost exclusive second language (L2) use in classrooms (Ellis & Shintani, 2014). However, this 'monolingual' view of pedagogy (Hall & Cook, 2012) is drawing criticism. Indeed, the issue of immersive versus multilingual approaches to L2 teaching is "the most important theoretical and pedagogic question facing both the research and practitioner communities today" (Macaro 2011). From a 'multicompetence' perspective (Cook, 1991), which considers all known languages to constitute a single system of knowledge, the goal of foreign teaching/learning should be the development of bi/multilingualism, with proficient, flexible use of multiple languages (Creese & Blackledge, 2010). This study examined whether strategic use of learners' native language (L1) facilitates L2 acquisition at the beginning level, contrasting more and less commonly taught foreign languages.

In a longitudinal, 10-week study, two French and two Arabic foreign language classes at beginning levels of proficiency were taught, contrasting immersive (i.e. L2 only) versus multilingual (i.e. L2 + L1) pedagogies. Classroom observation data showed close to 100 % use of the L2 (French or Arabic) in the immersive environment, and between 5 % and 95 % L1 (English) use in the multilingual environment. Analyses of learning outcomes revealed higher scores, at times statistically significantly so, from the both multilingual groups (Arabic and French) on all weekly quizzes. We argue that multilingual pedagogies, such as 'translanguaging' (Garcia & Wei, 2014), which recruit a learner's full linguistic repertoire, facilitate second language acquisition at the beginning levels in contexts of both more and less commonly taught languages.